On a coffee cup a neighbor just gave to me:
"In the cookies of life, FRIENDS are the chocolate chips."

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Now That I Have My Chili, It's Time for Fun

Yes, I have my chili. It's Hatch Green Chili and I buy it in cans since I don't have means right now for fresh - and it's been years since I roasted and peeled chili. Canned is easier to store. Running to the grocery store was the second thing I did after arriving at my sons Tuesday. The first thing was going to Socorro Springs Restaurant and ordering my fav pizza - Elfego. It's a pepperoni pizza topped with fresh autumn roast green chili. I had devoured it when I thought of getting a picture of it. Guess will have to go back and have another!

Another item I bought was some locally made sourdough bread made at a community kitchen here in Socorro. I haven't tried it yet, but it's coming up time to have some toast as I write this posting.

Backing up to Sunday. My first day of travel was a short one, first stopping for lunch in Greensburg Ks, were I spent some time looking at the progress that has been made since the F5 tornado that wiped out 95% of the town in May of 2007. The County Courthouse was one of the few buildings not leveled.

I drove just a couple hundred miles to Fort Supply COE campground located near Fort Supply OK. Uneventful, except when I couldn't find the turn off to the campground from Fort Supply. I had directions coming from Woodward. No signage at the Fort Supply, ended up asking someone.

Since the end of the season is at the end of October, there was only one loop open. And I joined 9 others there. Had a beautiful site right at waters edge. Didn't take long to set up, didn't even lower the rear stabilizers or hook up the water. Did the electricity though. Cost, with geezer pas is $10. Spot was perfectly level - bubbles on front to back and side to side levelers was right in the middle. First time that has ever happened to me.

I visited with some local folks, from nearby Woodward and understand this really isn't a park to come to from Memorial weekend to Labor Day weekend - Party Central. It was quiet, just a bunch of old retired people getting the last visits in before closing. As is with a lot of lakes, it is low. Conservation pool is 61.4% full at 2001 feet which covers 7541 acre feet of water stored. Looks like a lot of water, but I could see some old tree tops starting to break the surface.

I woke up to a beautiful sunrise over the dam. I should have remembered the old sailors warning: "Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky in the morning, sailor's warning" as to what was going to hit me later in the day!I left around 9:30, not particularly in any rush as I was just going to the Oasis State Park, just outside Portales NM. I had been there before and knew what to expect and how to get there. I stopped for lunch at a roadside rest area, outside Canadian TX, with a historical marker telling about the Marcy Trail - one of many that cover this part of the country. It served as a major road to the California goldfields in the 1840's and was later used by the overland stagecoaches.

Hint, hint. I started running into typical winds on the east side of Amarillo as I drove down US 60. It was pretty good as it was a bit of a tail wind and helping with the gas mileage. I took a FM road and cut down to I-40 into Amarillo, then take I-27 south to the Hereford TX turnoff. Opps, missed that turnoff and continued westward on I-40 until I could turn around. Well, I kept going and then decided to either find another FM road down to US 60 or go south on US 385 from Vega to Hereford. I found a FM road that would come out at Dawn TX on US 60. Oh yea. The wind on the trip down to US 60 was at my back side and even a better tailwind. Headed westward toward Clovis NM. Now the wind was getting stronger and hitting me on the passenger side. Dust around Hereford was terrible, all the way down to the TX/NM line wind/dust was bad as well as the road surface. Little Eggie's tire tracks just didn't fit very well in the semi's tracks grooved into the pavement!

I stopped at a Mickey Dee's to get something to drink to wash the "mud" down my throat. As I was getting back into the truck, I looked eastward and saw this huge cloud of red dust coming at Clovis. Oh lordie, time to get moving. I got about 5 minutes down the truck bypass to the highway to Portales, right beside the fairgrounds and wham, the biggest ole dust storm I have ever been in hit. The first round that hit, I couldn't even see the front end of my truck - like someone threw a bucket of red sand at the windshield. Wished I had a mind to grab my camera, but I was too busy hoping and praying someone wouldn't run into the back end of Eggie or me into the semi in front of me, as all traffic had come to a stop (I hoped). The semi in front of me and I stopped two more times because of visibility before we got to the intersection with the Portales highway. Here are some pictures, courtesy of the Clovis News Online.

The drive down to the Oasis SP wasn't a piece of cake either - except we kept running into white dust, then red dust, then white dust, then brown dust. Finally made it to the Park, found a site, hooked up electricity and that was it. Again, had perfect leveling site, no adjustments. Fixed a light supper and went to bed. Wind finally started dying down around 10 p.m. and by 3 a.m., when I awoke again, it was quiet. Oasis SP was a real oasis, there was wind, but no blowing dust or sand although the Park is made up of sand dunes. The sky overhead was clear unlike what was to the west of us or the east of the Park. Yup, it was an oasis for the 8 of us there.

Next morning took a shower in a nice warm shower house and left by 8:15 a.m. No problems with wind on the way to Socorro. Took US 60 all the way to I-25 at Bernardo and they south to Socorro.

This afternoon, we are off to Albuquerque to do a little shopping at Trader Joe's, get the bottom cover on my MacBook fixed (looks like a fish mouth) as found out there was a problem on some MacBooks shipped out during a certain time frame and am hoping mine is one of those. Then we'll have an early dinner at another one of my favorite places in Albuquerque - Garduno's.

This morning, besides posting this update, I took son's vacuum out to the trailer to clean up some of the sand inside. Tomorrow afternoon, I'll be heading down to an RV park located just outside the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge to check to see which migrating birds have shown up - looks like a fair number of Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes are there already. Here I will be meeting up with friends Geri and Chuck, from Truth or Consequences.

1 comment:

Be careful out there! We missed that storm by one day! We literally passed each other one day apart. We took 60 up from Almagordo and then hit 54 to 40 into Amarillo yesterday and on in to Nebraska today. Home sweet mess! Have fun and travel safe on the way home.